Women of Britain
by EtincelleD'OR
Summary: It's 1917, only thirty-six percent of those that volunteer are deemed fit for full military duties. Forty percent are classified as unable to undergo physical exertion, almost half of the British infantry are nineteen years old or less. And the Americans aren't coming. Somewhere amidst the pride, the honour and the madness, Sybil does the most selfish thing of her life.


_~*~ Women of Britain ~*~_

* * *

Hey all, so your lovely reviews to _The Coast of Galicia_ have inspired me to finish this, I started before I started that one, kind of got near the end and then didn't know how to finish it. But thanks to you all, I did. I was in two minds about how to finish this, one of the lovely things about Downton Abbey is that it doesn't rely on sex or violence to sell, just its wonderful storylines and sets. I had half a mind to cut some of the last bits out on that basis, but decided to include them as it's not a proper lemon. Enjoy!

**Set after 2x04.**

* * *

This isn't the first time that Sybil has seen this particular poster.

When it all began, the British propaganda was something of a peculiarity adorning the windows of every shop, something that stirred courage in the hearts of the young and struck fear into those of the wise. Now it is a common sighting throughout the country, so much so that there is a certain nausea that seems to descend on Sybil whenever she so much as walks past a bulletin in the street. Just the bright but blurred colours of one in the distance has every tiny detail of each illustration flying around in her mind like a magpie caught in a trap. She knows each and every one by heart now, the scuffed and curling corners, the thick black lines of ink and each little flick of the bold stamped font curving like sneers and frowns are etched into her mind. This one is no different, and not the clacking of her small heels against the cobbles nor the slight extension of her concentration required to keep her balance over their rough uneven surface could block out the image.

WOMEN OF BRITAIN

SAY GO!

The woman in the poster is gazing admirably out of the window at the retreating backs of armed soldiers, coiffed and made-up, her daughter in her arms and her son at her feet. Sybil turns up the collar of her coat against the wind on the back of her neck, not sure if it is this or the poster that is sending chills up her spine. Of course the woman in the poster is perfect; blonde, beautiful, and proud of her husband are he marches toward his oblivion. She drives her hands further into her pockets and quickens her pace as she leaves the village and heads for the country lane that leads to the Abbey's lengthy gravel driveway. Not even in this chilly rural backdrop can she empty her head of that damned poster. What woman in her right mind would say 'go'? Go and get yourself blown to smithereens for your country darling?

Her mouth curves into what should have been a smirk if she could have quite mustered it, but as it happens, she can't. She empties her lungs of air in a short sharp huff, sending swirls of condensation into the air, only to collide with her skin again as she moves forward through it, freezing her emotionless expression in place. The irony, she thinks, is uncanny.

It's 1917, only thirty-six percent of those that volunteered are deemed fit for full military duties. Forty percent are classified as unable to undergo physical exertion, almost half of the British infantry are nineteen years old or less.

And the Americans aren't coming.

When Branson walks into small dressing room that has been designated as an examination room off of one of the smaller bedroom wards, approximately half an hour later, Sybil's stomach does a somersault. Or three. The two hands that she has clasped in front of her tighten, and she briefly wonders if it is obvious to him. The guilt?

This isn't usually the sort of thing a nurse would do. The art of auscultation is one that has traditionally only been taught to doctors. Nurses only require a basic understanding of it in their roles, but these times are not 'usual'. A few of the more trusted nurses amongst the ranks had been given an intensive course in auscultation, amongst other things, for the purposes of these very consultations. The large majority of the men she would examine today would have heart murmurs, or mechanical limps and suchlike. There aren't enough doctors in France or in England to deal with the convoy of critically injured, they are working to the bone trying to save what lives any of these wounded men have left. Meanwhile, Britain needs more soldiers, and the government is narrowing down the criteria one needs to be excluded from the fighting. And these reassessments, in desperate circumstances, have been delegated to the nurses.

That means that Sybil has to choose, between those that will go to the Front, and those that will not.

"Good morning milady."

Her breathing stops, just for a millisecond. Oh God...

"Good morning Branson." She forces a smile and gestures towards the chair in front of the desk, "If you'd like to take a seat?" He obliges and lowers himself into the less than comfortable chair. His expression is perfectly readable.

Why is eye-contact so hard? "So, as you know you are being reassessed for your suitability for service." She can't look, "And, you haven't received any medical treatment since your last examination?"

He shakes his head. "No milady."

"Have you experienced any shortness of breath or sudden changes in heart rate?"

Branson raises his eyebrows accordingly. "No milady."

Any light-headedness or dizziness?"

_Only in your presence milady_. "No."

"And, any worries or concerns?"

"No milady."

She still can't look him in the eye. "Right, may I take your pulse please?"

He slides the sleeve of his uniform up slightly and lets her press her fingers to his wrist. The purpose is to compare the peripheral pulse with the heart rate itself, any significant difference implies that the cardiovascular system may not be functioning correctly. She clasps her nurse's watch in her left hand and counts the beats for fifteen seconds, and then does a quick calculation to work out the beats per minute.

"104bpm." She says to herself. That's fast. The average rate for a young man at rest is between 70 and 75. That's a pulse she would expect at light exercise. The pulse is a little feathery she notices, but that is due to the mitral prolapse. The mitral, or left atrioventricular valve has two cusps which are supposed to close completely during diastole, like a set of doors that can only open one way, when they are shut they should not open the other way. This is what happens during a valve prolapse. It means that a little blood is forced back into the left atrium every time the heart contracts, causing a small amount of congestion. The fact that this has never been picked up before, by a doctor in Ireland or Branson noticing that he cannot maintain fitness as easily as he should be able to, gives Sybil a marginal amount of relief.

"If you would unbutton your shirt to the waist I'll do a quick examination."

He looks around the room, at the furniture, at the window to check that no one is there, to avoid looking at her if anything. There is something oddly thrilling about parting the fabric and baring his skin to the cool air. Sybil listens to the sound of his breathing as her eyes trail from his chest to his face, and imagines briefly stepping over to him and kissing him senseless, before shaking her head sharply back into reality.

He braces himself for the sensation of the cold metal against his skin, but it doesn't come. Instead he feels the warm pressure of her hand pressing down at the border of his left pectoral muscle, her fingers held together, almost cupping over the nipple.

He sucks in a sharp breath. "What are you doing?"

"Palpation." She says, "You can feel the thrills if you press in the right places. I can feel the apex of your heart from here." She explains.

The irony that she is literally holding his heart in her hand and can 'feel the thrills' is not lost on Branson, and even though the pressure of her touch is almost uncomfortable, his mind races and his blood fires.

"Left ventricular impulse is normal..." she says, and she moves her hand in a slow sweeping motion over his skin to place it directly over his heart, with her fingers towards his shoulder.

A shiver travels down Branson's spine. Surely she knows what this is doing to him? Surely she can feel his heart leaping beneath his ribs?

"Right ventricular impulse is normal." She moves her hand a little further up, "Aortic and pulmonary areas are normal." She pauses for a moment, "Alright then, I'll just have a quick listen to your heart." She says, unwinding the stethoscope from her neck. She presses it to the skin just below his nipple again, this time causing him to flinch. He isn't really listening. He knows he should be, and he wants to, but he really can't help it, as she pushes the instrument over towards his axilla, all he can think about is trying to wipe his mind clear of his thoughts and desires. He is concentrating, but not succeeding.

"I don't suppose you could close your mouth?"

He blinks. "Sorry milady?"

"It muffles the sound if you mouth-breathe."

"Oh, right." He says. Until this point, he hasn't even been aware that he has been doing so.

The sound blurs for a moment, and Sybil struggles to still the index finger that is securing the diaphragm of the stethoscope to Branson's skin. She tightens her grip, and tells herself to get on with it, yet no matter how hard she tries, her right hand will not stop shaking. His heart rate is still well above the seventy beats per minute she knows she should expect from a healthy young man, but that is not what she is listening for. She moves the diaphragm from the second right intercostal space, and then from the 2nd to the 5th on the left, and the left mid-clavicular intercostal space. There is no intensification on respiration, but a marked murmur is present over the first phase of systole and dulls out the usually clear second phase. It sounds like a loosh-dub, instead of a lub-dub, and this is fairly standard for mitral prolapse. Sybil holds her breath. It is the apical impulse that is going to seal his fate now. A normal or high apical impulse implies good ejection fraction and a mild prolapse. A sustained displaced one indicates a more severe problem.

Her face is wrought with concentration. "Your heart-rate is awfully fast you know."

He lets his eyes fall shut as her words resound in his ears and momentarily block out the thudding of his pulse. "I can't help that, milady."

She is lingering, desperately waiting for something else. His murmur is definitely there, loud and clear, but there needs to be more. The apical impulse is intermittently displaced, and only marginally. It needs to be consistent. Just one more irregularity, just one, and she can sign him off as unfit. Shaking her head, she returns the stethoscope to its home around her neck.

"Is that it?" he asked her, his voice floating in the air between them as if it were no man's land.

"Not yet." She says, "I need to listen to your heart after exercise."

He wrinkles his nose slightly. "What?" he asks, "What for?"

"Because you will be required to do exercise training and I need to know if exercise exacerbates the murmur."

"Sybil..." he says, quietly but firmly, a small spark of rebellion lighting in his eyes, "We both know I won't be doing any training."

Sybil struggles not to roll her own in frustration. Branson would sooner be seen dead than in a British uniform. If he makes a particular scene of himself, as she does not doubt he will, he could easily face a firing squad. The best he would have to hope for was prison. Prison. She pauses in her thought – at least he wouldn't be dead.

"Please," she says, trying not to show her concerns, "Just, humour me."

He jerks his eyebrows and exhales sharply, swaying backwards and forwards on his heels. "Right..." he says, averting his gaze briefly as if unsure as to where he should direct it as he rebuttons his shirt, his eyes swept back to her in a fleeting moment, before throwing his right arm into his green uniform jacket, seizing his hat from the table, and turning on his heel. "Right."

"Just up and down the stairs a few times will do." She suggests to his retreating back.

He shrugs, partially to force the jacket into its correct place over his shoulders, partially at her, and turns, taking two quick light steps backwards with a ridiculing look on his face. "Oh Jesus 'cause I'll look like a right pillock doin' that." He says, as he sets off at a jog out of the door. A few of the other officers shoot him weird looks as he goes, raising eyebrows and tilting sneers. He's a coward to them, she thinks, but then, they are not Irish.

Cousin Isabel pokes her head around the door just as Sybil is reorganising her paperwork. "Was it you who sent poor Branson on some kind of wild goose chase?"

'Poor Branson'. She always seems to call him that. Sybil inwardly snorts. He will be 'poor Branson' if he gets sent to the Front. And as for the wild goose chase, Branson would probably argue that he's been on one of those for years anyway.

"He said he'd accidentally left one of the motors outside with its hood up." Says Sybil calmly, peering out of the large window which is now splattered with the first few raindrops of the day, hoping that he actually isn't running up and down the grand staircase as she speaks. "Said he'd only be a minute."

"That's not like Branson." Isabel says.

Sybil smiles. "I just hope he gets back soon, he's holding up the queue."

"I don't. The longer he delays the wretched medical the better." She says dismissively, before bustling off down the hallway.

Sybil closes her eyes slowly and breathes. Cousin Isabel may be Cousin Isabel, but she is right. So very right. She drops herself into the chair provided for the patients, and cradles her head in her hands, her face screwing tightly into a maelstrom of sadness. This day had been coming for a long time now. Borrowed time. Ever since their minor disagreement outside the front door she hasn't been to see him in the garage, neither of them has spoken a word to the other. He asked her to marry him...

Heavy footsteps against the polished wooden floorboards draw her attention upwards, and Branson is back and closing the door behind him. Panting lightly, his chest rises and falls in a rhythmic pattern.

"Back milady." he says simply, starting to remove his jacket again.

"You didn't actually run up and down the stairs did you?"

"No, I ran to the feckin' moon and back." he looks down to undo his necktie, and when he looks up again his face falls promptly as he sees Sybil's has, "Sorry, milady." He says quickly, flicking the tie from around his neck, "I ran to the garage and back."

Sybil sighs and puts the stethoscope into her ears. The ear-pieces muffle the sounds of the ward outside, of the crumpling of his shirt as he rolls it from his shoulders.

He flinches this time. "You didn't make any of the others run." He says, the dismay evident in the softness of his beautiful Irish voice.

"The others haven't got heart murmurs." She answers as she switches the diaphragm for the bell, searching, frantically searching for the tiniest, littlest, significant displacement. Plenty of the others have heart murmurs, she ponders, but he doesn't need to know that. Sometimes, she thought she heard it and her heart leapt for joy, but when she made herself listen harder, it wasn't there, like the sheer thought of it being there was enough to project it into her ears. The murmur is there, but it is not different, no worse, no better. She listens from every angle, repeating everything again and again. Heavy exercise would probably incapacitate him, then again from the guidelines she has been given it sounds like no one is expecting these men to live long enough to be put under any kind of serious exercise.

A frown marring her face, she stands up straight and pulls the instrument from her ears. "That will be all, Branson."

She can feel a blue burning sensation in her skin from his eyes boring into the back of her as she turns away to get out a clean sheet for the next patient. Suddenly it is gone, as she notices, is he, leaving the door bouncing on the latch behind him.

What does she do? He's fit to fight. Young and _insignificant _enough to be put on the next convoy to France without a second thought. She'll never see him again. He would either die in the cold and the wet, a shell could tear his limbs from his body like petals from a daisy.

Or, he would object.

Prisons were full with prisoners of war. At least prisoners of war had fought for their countries, whatever side they had been on. The British Army would not hesitate to shoot the conscientious objectors, the cowards, just to free up space. The very fact that he is Irish and potentially IRA could get him shot. And she doubted that Branson's loud mouth would help his cause.

The paper is there, on the table. She has already signed on the dotted line.

'_I, Nurse Sybil Crawley have medically examined the above patient and in my professional opinion have deemed him FIT for military service._'

All that is left now, is either to tick the box. 'YES', or 'NO'.

* * *

The knock on the front door is brisk and firm, with a rap so sharp that it wakes him from his stupor with a jolt.

Branson blinks, and suddenly the page of words before him is exactly that, enclosed in his hands, and surrounded by the last glimmers of a fire that in his deep enthrallment he has forgotten to tend. He realises that his left leg has gone numb, sandwiched between his right leg and the threadbare footrest, and that there is an ache in the small of his back for not having moved an inch for what must have been getting on for four hours. The leer of the oil lamp behind his old armchair suddenly caught the side of his eye, causing him to blink again. He closes his eyes and curses in murmurs – is a little peace of an evening too much to ask at Downton Abbey? In either sense of the word? He grimaces to himself – tearing his attention from one of his books was much like the sensation of waking from a particularly good dream. Falling back to reality with a thud.

Taking in his surroundings, he realises how cold it is, and once again that there is somebody standing outside his front door. He inwardly grumbles for the interruption, and then scolds himself – he had been raised with better manners. His lips tilt into a small frown as he reluctantly places his book to one side and heaves himself out of his chair and towards the door.

He unlocks it and swings it open. "I'm sorry I was..." He stops, and his face falls. "Lady Sybil?"

She is still in her nurse's uniform. Just about able to read the upside-down watch attached to her breast, he sees it is nearly one in the morning. Her eyes are red and swollen, the dark circles beneath them don't shift when she briefly wipes them on her sleeve. By Christ he has never seen her so upset, so ill-looking. Sybil is a stoic character, even by nurses' standards, yet it is as if something has pinned her eyelids back with shock.

Branson has to try not to soften under her gaze, he has to try so very hard to succeed. He wants so much for her to understand him more, understand his passion, understand why she should forgive him for his sudden outburst the other day, understand why he was right to have been so sharp. But now is not the time. His eyes rest upon her dread-ridden youthful face and against his will, they fill with fondness and love and worry, and he lets himself exhale, only to seep a silent breath that he can't quite bring himself recover. How on Earth has he got to where he is now? In 1913, he was twenty-three, aspiring to be a politician, and finding himself a little sweet on Lady Sybil. Four years later, he is twenty-seven, still aspiring to be a politician, and frantically in love with Lady Sybil. She's beautiful, so very beautiful that even her flaws are perfections. When you start to see intricate beauty in another human being, you start to see intricate beauty in other things too. Sometimes inanimate objects, that you would never have paid attention to before. It all becomes artwork, and the dark cruel world becomes poetry. His heart begins to beat inside his chest, his skin begins to warm, and his body aches for air almost as much as it aches for her.

"May I come in?" she asks assertively, but her words are heavy with a solemnity that stirs an inward guilt that his pride would never allow him to show. And why should he be guilty? He has merely told her the truth, that is all, merely pointed out when she was wrong, damn it, why in God's name does he feel guilty?

Then he realises quite how bitter the wind is, and that she is quietly shaking where she stands. "Of course." He says quietly, holding the door open for her, rigid-backed as he does so many times the motor door, and silently shuts it behind her.

"I'm sorry to be so late." She says as she steps into his tiny living room, and he inwardly curses not being a tidier man. "I couldn't get away from the wards."

There is something about her tone, something very badly wrong. He has spent so many hours now listening to her in the car and there is something amiss, she isn't even trying to sound cheery for lack of a better front.

"What are you doing here milady?" he asks, noticing her visible shivering again and kneeling down at the hearth to rekindle the fire. He has to do something, he can't keep staring at her. The ferocity with which he shovels what little coal he has into the fire surprises him – this is the last of his ration, he would go cold for the rest of the week now, but he doesn't care. He needs to make her warm.

Returning the fire-guard to its usual place, he settles himself cross-legged on the floor and peers into the basket, and then back at her. "I'm sorry about your cousin..." she says, the pain in her voice beginning to leak into the gap between them through her shield of sheer strength, "My comment was ill-educated and rude, and I realised that I never came to ask if you would forgive me?"

Branson begins to panic. That isn't the reason she is here and they both know it. Again he looks into her face, and again he gets lost in it. "You don't need to apologise to me, milady."

"No, I do." She says, "I know what goes on in Ireland, it was a stupid thing to say."

"And I'm so sorry about what I said about your nursin' milady." He interrupts humbly, leaping at the chance to take back the words that had plagued him ever since they left his mouth, "I never meant it, I just, I... I don't like the way they talk about you when you're not listenin', milady."

"What do they say?"

Branson's eyes immediately fall to the floor, sealing his lips closed with something he isn't sure is fear or kindness. He has no business speaking to her like that in any case, and he imagines that if she only knew what they said she probably wouldn't want to go back into the wards again, let alone take them cups of tea, then again, it might all be water off a duck's back. Part of him already knows what's coming. This is the side of men that women like to believe doesn't exist, or at least like to believe doesn't exist in certain individuals. But the truth is, that it's always there. Women don't make lewd jokes about men between themselves, nor is treating one like a possession to be shagged or drained of money deemed acceptable by society.

Sybil quickly observes his reaction and attempts a smile. "Well, I suppose we must be even then."

"Indeed milady."

There is a pause, where neither of them can think of what to say next. There's clearly something horribly wrong, but how does he ask her?

"So..." he begins, sliding his hands into his pockets, "How long will it be?"

Sybil sniffs. "I'm... so... ashamed..." she says. She seems unable to stand in one place for long, and takes to pacing up and down the worn-out rug, placing her hands onto her hips as she goes. Every so often she raises a hand as if she is going to say something, but she never does, and that hand always darts either to her forehead or back to her hip.

He scoffs and she hears the scuff of the concrete floor beneath his boots. "What?" he asks, "Of me?"

Her face falls. "Don't be ridiculous."

"Of what then?"

Branson's world slows down as he sees her face crumple and her façade shatter and fall to the floor like glass, and he finds himself dropping to his knees as she drops to the sofa, her head in her hands and so low to almost be between her knees. Her body racks with sobs so hard that he can't quite get a good grip on her arms.

"Sybil..." he says, "What on Earth's the matter? Tell me, please..."

When she eventually looks up at him, a blurry image through streaming eyes and stinging cheeks, she exhales with a shudder, and accepts his offer of a handkerchief.

She dabs at her eyes. "I did a terrible thing today..."

"What?" he says, making his voice as soothing as he can, "You couldn't do a terrible thing if you tried, milady."

"No Branson..." she says, "You don't understand..."

"Tell me..." he says, rubbing her arms gently, "I'll not judge you I promise."

Her red swollen eyes stare blankly at the dingy bricks to her right hand side. "Thousands of women..." she says, wetting her lip, "will never have the chance to do what I did today."

"What?" he whispers.

"_You asked me how long_..." she says, desperately trying to stop her hands from shaking, "_So I'm telling you_..."

"_Sybil_..."

Tearing herself from his grasp, she shuffles as far back from him as she can on the tiny sofa, ripping her eyes from his soft beautiful gaze and closing them tightly, like a small child awaiting a slap from a parent. "I signed you off as unfit."

It takes a moment for the words to sink in. He falls into a trance-like stare, his legs pushing him from his knees to his feet in a slow fluid motion. Good Lord in Heaven what has she done? He runs a hand through his hair. "Jesus Sybil..."

Regaining some of her composure at what she initially took to be his gratitude, her voice falls low and calm again. "It's not fair." She interrupts him, glaring into his back. As he has the courage to peek over his shoulder and meet her gaze, he quickly turns away again. "You should be going. I have no right whatsoever to lie for you."

"Then don't!" He says, "Change it."

"And you'll do what?" she asks, "March out in front of a firing squad waving the Irish flag?"

His eyes narrow and his temper simmers over. "How dare you..."

"Dare what?" she seethes, "You are far, too proud Tom Branson, you can't see that you're no better or worse than any other man in this war. Oddly enough, you're not the only one who doesn't – who didn't, want to go! For whatever reason!"

"_I will not fight for the British Army I would sooner __**die**_!"

"And that is _exactly_ what will happen if you go!"

"I am _not _afraid of them Sybil!"

"Well I _am_!"

The words kick Branson in the stomach so hard that they knock his own from his mind. Until this silence, neither of them had realised how loud they were screaming at each other, how desperate each were to be heard above the other. His little protest that he has been planning in his mind for weeks now, making the papers for Ireland, would never happen.

"But what does it matter?" a tear slides down her cheek, "You'd get yourself killed either way! _And I think, that I have just done the most selfish thing of my life, trying to save you_!"

Silence falls like a frost between them and Sybil realises just how cold it is in here. Wiping the tears from her face with her fingers, she wipes them on the opposite sleeve as she huddles.

"Sybil..."

His beautiful soft voice again, tearing her open at the seams, caressing her name. His eyes are forbidding, as if she is giving him a life sentence. Doesn't he understand that she's taking one away? She has thought long and hard about this, fully knowing what was right, and fully knowing that she had chosen to do wrong.

"You have to change it..."

She blinks the tears from her eyes. "_I can't_." She whispers, "_I can't let you go._" She sobs,"_To war or to prison_."

"Sybil..."

"I'm not proud of what I've done, Branson!" she says, her voice once more straight and true, "_I_ could go to prison for this! If anybody has the sense to look at you again... It's treason!"

"You don't have to do this..."

"Yes." She says, clenching her fists so tightly that her knuckles turn white. "Yes Branson, I do."

Wordlessly, Branson kneels down beside her again, running his hands gently down her arms and resting them on her quivering wrists. "Ssh now, it's all alright, don't you fret..." he says, "No one's gonna do you for treason. You're not even supposed to be doin' the doctors' work anyway..."

Something causes Branson to fall silent and take a deep breath into his lungs and hold it, almost as if he is listening for something. Sybil's eyes fall to his hand, and then rise back to his face. "You have a pulse of 96..." he says slowly, and she snatches her wrist away from him.

She sighs. "I've had a long day, I'm stressed, emotions are running high, is it really any wonder?"

"That means..."

"Branson..."

He blinks in something akin to wonder as he feels his eyes glaze over with shining tears waiting to spill, and he cannot tell if it is his breath or his heart that catches in his throat with a small, sudden jerk. "You love me."

Sybil's jaw drops, her eyes suddenly wild again. "Branson!"

He tries to whisper it, but his larynx is constricting and has lost all ability to control the volume in his voice, instead having to force the beginning of each word out of silence, and it comes out as a choked cry. "You _are_ in love with me..."

"There you go jumping to conclusions again!"

"This is a little bit more than not wanting me to lose my job Sybil." he says, lowering himself to his knees beside her again, "You want clinical terms? Fine. Your pulse is elevated, your breathing is deep, your pupils are dilated."

"All are also signs of anger and stress!" she says, "And my pupils are dilated because the light in here is poor!"

"You declared me medically unfit to go to _war_ when we both know that isn't the case." He says, "And you said it was the most _selfish_ thing you'd ever done." She is shrinking away from him again, "It's nothing to be ashamed of Sybil..."

"Yes it is Branson, don't you see?"

He faces her head on. "I do see I just don't care."

Sybil's head snaps up and her eyes, now sad rather than angry, widen ever so slightly. He takes her hands in his and squeezes them gently. "And neither should you."

Branson briefly compares himself with a small puppy jumping up at his mistress' lap. This action, this gesture, of safeguarding him is a little too great to ignore. She is so frightened of her own feelings, he thinks, frightened of her own judgement. What happens if he is only the Wickham character in her story, and her family do cast her out? Where does she go? What does she do? Why doesn't she quite trust him when he says he'll look after her until the day he dies?

"I have to care..." she says, "It's my job now."

He strokes his thumbs over her hands gently, and lets himself exhale. "I'm sorry..." he says, "What you did... That you cared, that means the world and heavens to me..."

Sybil holds back another sniff as his thumbs glide back and forth over her hands soothingly. Of all the thousands of men that have been and will be shipped to France over the course of this godforsaken war, Sybil has only ever been acquainted with such a tiny proportion of them, and only ever so briefly. There were some who she fought for days on end to save, some survived, most did not. And even if they healed correctly, didn't contract infection, underwent the necessary physiotherapy and counselling, returned to enough fitness for service again, all those men ever do is return to the Front, whereupon she learns of their deaths only days later. She starts to drown in her guilt, has she really saved any of them at all? Hundreds of soldiers dying every day, and Sybil can't do a thing to save any of them. They might as well be dead from the moment they put on a military uniform. For all the efforts she makes, that all the doctors and nurses make, Sybil feels more powerless than she ever has before, like a pawn in a game where the pieces are pushed about the board by generals who will never see the Front themselves. When she was asked to take part in the reassessments, she almost burst into tears. How do you make a decision between who lives and who dies? She felt like yelling at every single man who walked into her consulting room that day to run, just to run, anywhere, as far away as possible. Get on a boat to America, it doesn't matter how, just save yourself.

Of course even if she had said that, how many of them would have done so? And what would they have thought of her had she said it? Encouraging desertion was also punishable by a prison sentence. Sybil sighs and takes a moment to study Branson's face. In that moment, she realises just how thankful to God she is that Branson was randomly allocated to her consultation room, out of the six possibilities. Any other nurse would have signed him off as fit. They might have realised he was Irish when he spoke but she doubts that they would know what that meant for him, none of them know about his beliefs, his passions, his fierce loyalty to his own country, his bitter refusal to fight when he was first called up, that had he been a little healthier would have resulted in his imprisonment. Her fists tighten underneath his palms. He has only ever had two choices; death on the battlefield, or death in prison. And now she has two choices:

Send him to that death, or let him live.

Sybil looks deep into his unnaturally blue eyes, and wonders how she ever has the audacity to call it a choice. If there is one young man, _one single wretched life _that she can save from this hellish blood-soaked atrocity in which Britain bathes with red glory and basks in the shadow of death...

It's his.

"I, I think..." she stutters, "That if I knew all those men half as well as I know you, I wouldn't sleep at night for as long as I live."

After much deliberation as to whether or not he should speak, Branson wets his lip. _"I'd be there..._" he whispers to her, _"I'd be there to hold you every night until you did."_

Sybil's lips are on his before he has time to draw another breath, her arms winding around his neck and her fingers into his hair. She doesn't see the shock in his eyes that quickly dissolves into nothing as he slides his hands down her sides to her waists and lifts her from the edge of the sofa and into his arms. He originally intended to pick her up and lift her either to her feet or to the sofa again, as trying to get close enough whilst kneeling is neither easy nor comfortable, but his head is overwhelmed and swimming in a never ending pool of desire at her eagerness that any sense of balance he might have possessed has floated away and he topples backwards, his back hitting the rug with a dampened thud. He hears a crackle in the fire beside him and he realises how much hotter it is, and how much harder he wants to kiss her. A small moan escapes his throat as he fleetingly pictures pulling her clothes from her and making love to her here, now, the feel of soft cries and carpet-burns, her soft skin pressed against his, their bodies contorting in pleasure.

He is reawakened from his fantasy by a small shift in Sybil's weight, and he isn't sure if it's because he has – unbeknownst to himself – slightly raised a knee between her legs, or if it's the bulge that's growing in his trousers. Neither of them have removed any clothes, yet her touch is making his skin catch fire. He squirms and writhes, he can't keep still, he digs the heels of his boots into the cracks between the floorboards but it doesn't stop him. It's because it's her. Sybil runs her widespread fingers from his stomach to his shoulders and marvels at the sounds he makes and the way he moves, there is something very powerful about this, something very thrilling and exciting. Today, she saved him from a horrible fate, and now she is churning his brain into butter and driving him to the point of sexual madness. Today, he is hers. Unreservedly, completely and indisputably hers.

Sybil almost lets her mind run away. This inexplicable urge to just keep going, Hell to the consequences, is powerful and convincing. She feels him arch his back slightly beneath her and raise his hips into hers in a smooth fluid motion, his erection presses into her core for a moment, and her moan is so loud that she breaks the kiss for a moment as a spike of pleasure shoots through her. He repeats the movement slowly and she finds herself involuntarily pushing herself against him, just a little. She has contemplated the events of her wedding night many times. She has read books, from romances to anatomy textbooks, and however colourfully the romances describe the act of love, she has never found herself looking forward it, rather the opposite, and has dreaded the day ever since her early adolescence. The anatomy textbooks tell of pain and blood, not to mention the uglier aspects of pregnancy and indeed childbirth that followed, unless you were extremely lucky. But for the first time in her life, Sybil feels like she wants to, wants him. How easy it is, she thinks, to give in to these cravings. But she can't, the risk of falling pregnant is too high...

Oh good God...

Sybil suddenly pulls back from their heated kiss, and takes in her surroundings once more. The heat on her one cheek and the biting cold on the other slaps her back into reality. She is propped up on her elbows, on the floor of the chauffeur's cottage, on top of the chauffeur, kissing him lustfully, and mulling around sweet nothings in her head about...

She looks down at him, the expression on his face seeps into her heart and breaks it from the inside, the colour on his cheeks and the shine in his eyes creep into her mind's eye where she is sure they will remain etched until the day she dies. She is rising and falling slightly with the motion of his breathing, and she finds herself desperately trying to ignore those feelings of arousal that she relished in just seconds before.

Leaning up on his own elbows, he chuckles deeply from beneath her. "_Am I dreamin'?_" he asks her, "_I must be dreamin'_..."

Recovering her composure a little, she makes herself breathe. "I think we both are." She replies, as she begins to ply herself from him, "I have to go..."

He scrambles to his feet as soon as she is off him, she is moving towards the door fast, and he is about to go after her, even going so far as to hold out a hand with the intention of catching her wrist and begging her to stay, but he stops, he forces himself to, he knows why she has to go, no matter how badly he wants her to stay.

"I'm sorry..." she says, the embarrassment eating into her flesh as she opens the front door of the chauffeurs cottage, letting a freezing cold draught fill the space between them, the fire flickering in the grate, "I didn't want it to go that far."

"_I _should apologise, milady..." he admits, diverting his eyes towards the fire at his left in something a little like shame; "I forgot myself."

"_So did I."_

Without a word more, and eyes wide and wild like those of a frightened deer in the headlights of an oncoming motorcar, Sybil shakes herself from her trance and disappears into the night, the skirt of her grey uniform licking the door as she goes, closing it behind her and allowing the full chill of the night to embrace her. As she marches back towards the grand house, she stiffens her arms against the cold, instead choosing not to raise her hands to them. She deserves to be cold, she convinces herself, they are _not_ married, nor are they ever likely to be. Lord why had she kissed him? Why had she felt that that was the right thing to do at that moment? She takes a moment to view the Abbey before her, shrouded in darkness, bathed in soft moonlight. Sybil checks her watch – it is almost three in the morning. Just before she closes the heavy wooden door on the outside frost, she looks back at where she knows the chauffeur's cottage lies between the trees down the drive, seeing with a squint of her eyes, only a tiny glimmer of light which she knows to be the fire, crackling and flickering in the grate.

She is not a woman of Britain after today, not after what she has done, not anymore.


End file.
